O is for the Oxford English Dictionary (oh, and Otters)

O is for the Oxford English Dictionary. And the owl in the drop cap? Why, that's a distant allusion to my favourite Tolkien-related word in the OED: wariangle.

Here's the link to Tolkien's entries: ‏@OEDonline: "Tolkien worked on OED entries for several 'W' words, including waggle, waistcoat, walloping, walnut, and walrus."

You can look up other authors and their words too, such as Agatha Christie: ‏@OEDonline: "Appointment with Words: where does Agatha Christie feature in the OED? (via @OxfordWords)."

You can also browse the historical thesaurus to find synonyms over time.

And there's also this: ‏@NOVALanguages: "World's largest natural sound archive now fully digital and fully online."

Hey, wait. I have no images for this letter!

Okay, I did a search for cute otters - did you know there's actually a CuteOtter.com?!

One of the first things that came up was a video from Chicago (I was there last month)! Here's an otter pup at Shedd Aquarium:



I've also been forgetting to check in to ROW80; which is slightly on purpose, as I've had lots of overtime at work and have also been busy knitting and hosting a booth at an artisans' fair, and getting lost in all the fun and exciting A to Z posts! I'm only editing on weekends now, and moving slowly at that. There are so many niggling bits in Druid's Moon left to fix!

How is your non-A to Z life going?

Comments

Linda G. said…
Awww. I love sea otters! Thanks for sharing the link to CuteOtter.com--I didn't know about that site.
Yeah, he's rather cute. His back feet don't want to stay down though even with the kicking.
Unknown said…
Aww cutie!

And I never knew famous authors featured in the OED! That's really kind of cool. I want to write a word definition for the OED when I'm all grown up and authorly.
DMS said…
Sea otters are so cute! I saw two once in the Pacific Ocean off of CA when I was visiting. They were too adorable.

I loved this information about the OED- it was new to me!
~Jess
J.L. Murphey said…
I love my OED! So much quicker than flipping through a book.

Aww, in regards to the otter.
Unknown said…
I don't know what I'd do without my dictionary, probably continue on with my poverty of speech.
Gina Gao said…
I like sea otters very much! This is so cute!

www.modernworld4.blogspot.com
Nick Wilford said…
I didn't know that about the OED either!
Kristen said…
I love otters. What an adorable little video! And I love the info about the OED!

#atozchallenge, Kristen's blog: kristenhead.blogspot.com
Carrie-Anne said…
I've religiously used the OED since I was 14-15 years old. My edition is several decades old, but it has most of the words I use and need to look up. There are always more up-to-date dictionaries to fill in any modern words that might be missing.

I love otters. I used to want a pet otter, and finally, a few years ago, found myself a little stuffed otter at Hallmark's.
Unknown said…
I've always wondered if it is possible to find a way to knit and read or write at the same time. Okay, so writing might be a bit hard, but how cool would it be? Maybe if I recorded myself speaking while knitting and had the computer transcribe it? Because some of my best character development comes to me while knitting. If you ever find the way, let me know :D
Unknown said…
Adorable! What a sweet face! :)
Anonymous said…
Cute video.

I didn't know that about authors and the OED.
alberta ross said…
always said Tolkein was the master of words - great link - I really like my Oxford English Dictionaries - I have the two huge volumns (a bargin offer with over £200 off the price a few years back and a more compact leather bound one(with matching Oxford Thesaurus) also a bargin - I really like bargins as well!

Thanks for fun post:)
Anonymous said…
Deniz.... OH MY! Cuteness and word-neerdiness in one! (Yes, I know, technically that's logophilia, but...)

You may not be getting all sorts of ROW80 "stuff" done, but you are still making slow progress, and clearly you're having fun and doing lots of other cool things along with your writing journey (as well as feeding your fellow internet people a healthy diet of neat AtoZ. Thanks!
Beth Camp said…
One of my favorite OED stories occurred when a student dropped by an English faculty meeting. We were all sitting on the floor. Our fearless reader was reading to us from the OED. I could see by the student's face that she thought, "So this is what English teachers do on Saturday night!"

I really liked your post, a mix of play with words, commitment to writing, and sheer enjoyment (those cute otters). May your week go well. (I'm in the A-Z Challenge as well.)

http://bethandwriting.blogspot.com
Hi Deniz .. the OED stories are great aren't they .. I must try and find a link I had to the editing of the OED ..

The Owl in the drop cap .. is a delight to see - illustrations oh how I'd love to be able to do them ..

I guess Wariangle .. came from Tokien's time working on the Ws ..

Cheers Hilary
Deniz Bevan said…
Thanks all, I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Beth, that sounds like a great evening to me - love reading the dictionary!